The John Fernandes Ltd subsidiary, JP Santos & Company Ltd, has declared a sharp reduction in its gross profits for the half year ended June 2011 compared with the previous half year ended December 31, last year.
The company’s interim financial report indicates that between January and June this year gross profits slipped to $316,233.257 from $560,969,771 during the July to December period last year. Declining sales in the last quarter compared with the preceding one are not surprising given the traditional heavy seasonal trading which JP Santos enjoys during the Christmas season. A more realistic assessment of the fortunes of the company might be derived from comparing the January – June gross profit with the $268,199,847, which it recorded during January to June last year.
A comparison with the company’s sales turnover for January – June this year with July to December last year shows that the $1,745 billion in sales fell well below the $3,250 billion turnover during the latter half of 2010, though it reflected an increase over the $1,241 billion recorded during the first six months of last year.
For the first six months of 2011 the company reported an increase in both its administrative expenses and its taxes. For the first half of this year the company was required to surrender $61,928,272 to the Guyana Revenue Authority compared with more than $90 million at the end of the second quarter last year. A look at the first half of 2010 reveals that the company’s tax burden grew this year. For the January –June period last year taxes totalled just over $53.5 million.
Last year JP Santos more than doubled its 2009 after-tax profits making a stunning recovery by netting $152.9 million compared with a mere $72 million at the end of 2009 a year in which high taxation slashed its overall income by around 44 per cent.
